


Some Return by Failing Light

by TheWaffleBat



Series: Home From All The Ports [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Dad!Barnabas, Family Feels, Father Figures, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, fuck you I love him too much not to make him Kassandra's found father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-11 17:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17451455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWaffleBat/pseuds/TheWaffleBat
Summary: Barnabas, beside her, sighed when she tossed her bread to the water for the fish to eat. “I never had a family of my own,” He said. Kassandra looked to him, not sure what she thought she was going to find in his kind, old face, but it wasn’t the sadness, older than Kassandra’s years, shining out when he looked across the water. “I loved the sea too much to want to leave it, and no sensible woman would want to raise a child on a ship that might fall to pirates. By the time I was ready to settle down? Well, what woman would want an old fart like me, eh?”He laughed to himself, and Kassandra wondered how such a sad sound could have so much humour in it.  “But,” He said, “If I ever had one, I like to think I’d have a daughter like you.”Kassandra has found her mother, but it's one thing to search for her and it's entirely another to go to meet her. Barnabas knows how to help.





	Some Return by Failing Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Rudyard Kipling's _Sea-Wife._

Kassandra didn’t know what to make of anything anymore. Not her father, or the man she’d thought was hers who’d sent her plummeting to the bottom of a mountain, and the fact she’d let him walk free because _damn him_ , she could see he still cared for her, still saw her as his, and she was too weak to hold firm against that. Not her brother, alive but driven mad by pain and fury. Not Phoibe laying cold and dead, unmoving as the stone beneath her was unmoving; or Perikles, too, lying next to her in Kassandra’s head because maybe she hadn’t known him that well, but he’d helped her, and she liked him, and Athens was blind if it couldn’t see that he had been the only thing between them and destruction.

 _Gods_ , Perikles. Another fucking body on the pile, another person she couldn’t save because the gods found it funny to keep important things from her, to play with her like cats with a mouse. She’d liked his calm, his dry wit, the charm that got him power. He was a good man, a clever man, and far better than Kleon; and she’d let him die, helpless because it was _her brother_ dragging the sword across his throat and she had never wanted either of them to come to harm, hadn’t wanted to hurt Deimos and _fucking-!_ It didn’t _matter_ he’d been dying anyway - she should have been strong enough to save him, to give him the chance to recover if he could, or to at least let him die comfortable, at home, if he couldn’t.

Her mother - Myrrine and the memories of her kind laugh, her kind smile, viciousness at her edges but only to protect her children, and  _finally_ the truth - drifted closer as the crew took them in to port beneath Barnabas’ direction. She watched the island for long after they moored, beneath the rising stars as day gave way to night, from the deck of the Adrestia. Aspasia was watching her, but Kassandra didn’t much care; she had her own problems, her own grief, and Kassandra had hers. It was better - easier for them both - to keep the two separate. Especially when the Cult and her ruined family were all fucked up together in her head, tangled like the fishing nets on the dock.

She got up from the bench and paced the deck while the crew went below for a well earned rest, nodding and giving smiles for the stragglers who greeted her. She had her own bed on the Adrestia, Odessa warm and welcoming; she’d be a good distraction from everything. Odessa always seemed to know how to make the worst of the day go away. But no, she sighed, no, that wouldn’t do her any good. She’d been ignoring her thoughts too long, as always, so she turned from the hatch, turned her back to the island where her mother was, and sat staring into the water.

Ikaros, fresh from a hunt given the bloodied fish scales stuck to his beak, settled on her knee, his eyes too wise for a normal bird, his talons too gentle to scratch her skin. She stroked his fine, stern brow, down across his back between his wings. The wings they shared when she needed to see through his eyes, needed his sharp gaze, because gods only knew she wouldn't have come so far without him.

“What now?” She asked the bird, but Ikaros, for all his cleverness, didn’t have any answers for her. He only had kindness to offer, fluttering to her shoulder and picking her hair loose from its braid to preen it like she was any other eagle. “I don’t suppose you’d stop that if I asked?” She added, pulling a lock loose from his beak and tucking it back behind her ear. Ikaros just took it back and continued grooming. He muttered the sound he made for Barnabas, and sure enough the aged sailor was coming towards her with two chunks of bread.

“Ah,” Said Barnabas, tossing a tiny sliver of meat to Ikaros, “but he and I both know that you enjoy it really. Eat!” He said, handing Kassandra one of the pieces. “It’s fresh! Or it was this morning, at least. You’ve not had anything today, and if your mother is anything like you I shudder to think of the things she’d do to me if she knew I’d not been feeding you.”

Kassandra took it, more to stop Barnabas looking at her like a puppy than because she was hungry. She ate, but joylessly and gave it up quickly. She wasn't hungry. “You make it sound like I’m a pet.”

“Ha!” Shouted Barnabas with a grin, “Like anyone could tame you!”

She tossed a few crumbs to the fish, watching them swarm almost as intently as Ikaros was, but for different reasons. The greedy bird was always hungry, while Kassandra just wanted the distraction - half envied them, because fish didn’t have half the trouble people did. Fish weren’t thrown from mountains, or had to choose to kill their father or not only to find that their father was not their father by blood. Fish didn’t have to cross the entire world trying to find their mother to get answers, to fill a hole in their hearts decades old. Fish didn’t have cults trying to take over the world, or brothers driven mad.

All fish had to care about was finding food and not becoming food themselves, careful of Ikaros’ shadow fallen across the water in case he decided to open his wings and snatch them up. Even Ikaros didn’t have those same problems; he was only sharing them with Kassandra, because he loved her and because she was his and he was hers, and all problems were shared between them.

Barnabas, beside her, sighed when she tossed her bread to the water for the fish to eat. “I never had a family of my own,” He said. Kassandra looked to him, not sure what she thought she was going to find in his kind, old face, but it wasn’t the sadness, older than Kassandra’s years, shining out when he looked across the water. “I loved the sea too much to want to leave it, and no sensible woman would want to raise a child on a ship that might fall to pirates. By the time I was ready to settle down? Well, what woman would want an old fart like me, eh?”

He laughed to himself, and Kassandra wondered how such a sad sound could have so much humour in it.  “But,” He said, “If I ever had one, I like to think I’d have a daughter like you.”

“Like me?”

Kassandra didn’t think she was anything special, except maybe for Leonidas’ spear but even then it was _Leonidas’ spear_ , not Kassandra’s spear. She could fight, but anyone could learn to fight. She could run and climb, and keep going for days if she needed to, but anyone could do it too if they had the right training, or if it was life or death enough. She was just a person, who had sex awkwardly stuffed into a too-narrow bed and stifling giggles because of it, and who’d fallen asleep in patches of sunlight on impractically high places so often some of the crew were fondly calling her ‘Kitten’ behind her back. She spoiled her pets like anyone else, giving scraps to the wolf nosing about on deck, and even though she kept saying she was going to not let them she still let her wolf curl up on her legs to sleep in her bed at night, Ikaros roosting on her shoulder.

Barnabas looked to her, laughed again. “You’re right - she’d not be half so beautiful as you!” He clapped a friendly hand to Kassandra’s shoulder, tipped his head close in sudden, uncharacteristic seriousness. “You give yourself too little credit my friend,” He told her. “Look at all you’ve done! I don’t know anyone who could do half so much as you and still come out ahead.”

Kassandra winced, Phoibe’s place in her heart giving a twinge. “Not always.”

“Not always,” Barnabas agreed, Aspasia having told him what happened in Attika when Kassandra went below deck and refused to come out. “But you’re alive, and most of our enemies are not. And those that are will not be alive for long, eh? What have you got to fear? It’s everyone else who should be afraid!”

“Is this just a ploy to tell me not to be nervous about my mother again?” Kassandra asked, feeling a bit better when Barnabas laughed again. He was always laughing - she’d worry if he didn’t.

“Did you listen the first time?” He boomed joyfully. Barnabas sobered a little, but his eyes still glittered warmly at her, as joyful as he always as; he didn't mind when Kassandra didn't listen him, just trusted her to know what was good for her or not. “Always know that you have a place on the Adrestia, no matter what. And if it happens that your mother doesn’t want you, well, why should you try to put with a mother who's so big a fool? She’ll be the one to lose something special, not you.”

Kassandra looked to Ikaros, who peered at her in something almost like agreement with Barnabas, and to the wolf who flopped down beside her, putting his head on her shoulder like he was trying to copy Ikaros. “Thank you, Barnabas,” She said, and the looked back out across the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> Kassandra's arms put the fear of god in me and goddamn, I love her.
> 
> Barnabas and Herodotus are also my favourite NPC's in Odyssey. I'm aware I'm the only one who cares about them, but sod it - I'll be the supply to my own demand if I have to.
> 
> EDIT. Now part of a series! Next work will be up sometime soon.


End file.
